Commercial vehicles in Italian

Il consumo di carburante looks like a word-for-word match for « fuel consumption », and it is — but English carries a second name for the same quantity, and the two run in opposite directions. British usage says « fuel consumption » and counts litres burnt over a hundred kilometres, so a thrifty lorry has a low figure. American usage says « fuel economy » and counts miles covered on one gallon, so a thrifty lorry has a high one. The two numbers are reciprocals: one measures fuel against distance, the other distance against fuel, and neither can be compared with the other without being turned over first. Italian has no such fork. Il consumo is what is used up, from consumare, and everything that follows it counts fuel against distance in that order, on a data sheet and in an operator’s report alike. So a specification translated from Italian is always a consumption figure, never an economy figure, and the safe habit is to carry the unit across with the phrase rather than the bare number, which on its own says nothing about which way round it was written.